VA Exempts Yoga Instructors From Vocational School Rules

March 10, 2010

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By Jonathan Wilson

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell has signed a bill that should make it easier for prospective yoga instructors in the state to find a guru.

The new law comes three months after three local yoga instructors filed a federal lawsuit challenging Virginia's vocational school laws. House Bill 703 exempts yoga-instructor programs from those laws.

Without the change, any school offering a yoga teacher-training course would have had to pay a $2,500 application fee, a yearly renewal fee, and subject its curriculum to approval by bureaucrats.

School owners who didn't comply could have faced jail time.

Attorneys at the Institute for Justice, which helped the yoga instructors with their lawsuit, say although the fight over yoga-instruction schools is over, Virginia's vocational school laws still place undue burdens on professionals such as dog groomers and makeup artists.

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